@Karateed -- not an over-reaction. The user should always be able to control how, or when, a program 'calls home.' Now, I know that my feelings are old-fashioned, since so many programs now are constantly communicating with, hopefully, only the company that sold them to us... like Microsoft's new Cloud Office. But I still think it's an invasion of privacy if we are not told about it, and then can't turn it off, like Adobe checking your PC for updates all the time even after you have told it to stop.

@handrawn -- just did the Regedit Xara Xtreme Pro 8.1 'options / galleries: AllowAutoDownload resetting to 0' -- thanks very much for your help. Is this the only one that opens up the chat line to Xara/Magix?